Notes on memory

MEMORYMemory ­ the process by which we retain information about events that have happened inthe past Sensory memory Shortterm memory Longterm memoryCapacity = how much info can be stored in memoryDuration = how long the info can be held in the memoryEncoding = the way in which information is represented in the memory store (visual, acoustic, semantic)Sensory MemoryInformation is collected by our senses. The sensory store then holds this information in arelatively unprocessed form. The information decays rapidly.Sperling (1960)Participants were presented with a stimulus comprising 3 rows of 4 letters for 50milliseconds. He found that participants could only remember 4 or 5 letters. This shows thatall letters are registered briefly in sensory memory, but because it is so brief you can't seethem all. So, information in our sensory memory is only stored for fractions of a second.Shortterm MemoryA system for storing information for brief periods of time.DURATION Peterson & Peterson (1959)Participants were briefly shown a consonant trigram, and then asked to count backwards inthrees from a specified number to stop rehearsing these consonants. After 3,6,9,12,15 or 18second intervals participants were asked to recall the trigram in order. It was found thatwithout rehearsal, the duration of STM is very short (less than 18 seconds).CAPACITY ­ Miller (1956)Miller reviewed psychological research using different stimuli in the serial recall task (letters,dots, musical tones). He concluded that the capacity of STM was limited to seven ±2. Millerfurther suggested that the capacity of the short term memory may be enlarged by groupingitems together by associations/links they have with each other (chunking)ENCODING ­ Conrad (1964)He presented participants with 2 letter lists, consisting of 6 consonants very rapidly.P,C,V,T,B,D (acoustically similar)L,Z,F,X,H,W (acoustically dissimilar)After showing a letter list, participants had to write down the letters in the order theyremembered them appearing in. He found that participants made more mistakes when letterswere acoustically similar, compared to when they were acoustically dissimilarConrad concluded that the STM must rely on acoustic encoding, because when the letterswere very similar, participants found it very difficult to remember them.Longterm memoryDURATIONWe don't know!!! It is very difficult to measure, but it is generally agreed by Psychologists

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MEMORYthat there is no upper limit.CAPACITY Bahrick (1975)The findings: 60% accuracy in remembering names of class mates after 47 years when givenname cards to match and 20% accuracy in remembering names of class mates after 47years when given no name cardsConclusion: The LTM has a huge duration which can last a life time, but various techniquescan be used to aid memoryENCODING Baddeley (1966)4 groups of participants:1. Acoustically similar words2. Acoustically dissimilar words3.…read more